Apple has its sights set on another industry ripe for reinvention: the mobile healthcare and fitness world. Apple currently plans to release a new version of the iPhone operating system this year with health and fitness tracking integration as its headline feature, according to sources briefed on the plans. Apple’s work on such an operating system likely indicates that Apple is nearing the introduction of its long-awaited, sensor-laden “iWatch,” which sources say is well into development…

Apple’s claims that the iPad Air is around twice as fast as the iPad 4 have been validated by Geekbench scores posted by Primate Labs. The iPad’s multi-core performance score increased by 88 percent, while the single-core performance jumped by 90 percent … expand full story

Chief Executive Tim Cook’s third big hire after the short-lived Mark Papermaster (during Steve Jobs’ second leave) and unpopular John Browett is former Adobe CTO and Flash advocate Kevin Lynch, who will report to the SVP of Technologies Bob Mansfield. It would seem Lynch is pretty set up because Mansfield is set to retire next year and Lynch carries the same VP of Technologies title.

The hire seems to be a very interesting choice, however.

Lynch is a long-time Adobe veteran who came over when the company purchased Macromedia in 2005, largely for its Flash technology. Interestingly, Apple SVP Phil Schiller was the Vice President of Product Marketing at Macromedia, Inc. from December 1995 to March 1997. Lynch served as President of Macromedia Products and then as General Manager of Web Publishing from February 1996 to June 2000. The two likely spent some time together, although it was admittedly a decade and a half ago. Still, the relationship seems to be cordial.

Excellent #WWDC today — including collaboration by Adobe and Apple on Photoshop for Retina. Thanks for the nice call out @pschiller

There’s also more office politics and some concern that Jobs’s departure and the arrival of thousands of new employees will dilute the culture. Nevertheless, the company is happier and even somewhat more transparent than it was during Jobs’s tenure, these insiders say. There are fewer frantic calls at midnight, and there’s less implicit pressure on engineers to cut short or cancel vacations in the heat of product development cycles. No one would say Apple is better off without Steve Jobs. But to a surprising degree, it’s doing fine… Much about the company’s direction and even its products still reflects Jobs’s decisions and design preferences—the iPhone 5 was the last model to receive detailed input from Jobs, say two people familiar with the phone’s development.

On Jobs’ role in the new Maps app:

It’s possible that Jobs would have nixed the app before launch, but that’s not certain. Siri, the iPhone’s hapless voice assistant, was introduced under Jobs, though it was branded beta. Apple insiders say Jobs himself initiated the mapping project, putting mobile software chief Forstall in charge, and he installed a secret team on the third floor of Building 2 on Apple’s campus to replace Google Maps on the iPhone… Jobs also discussed pulling Google search from the iPhone, but figured that customers would reject that move, according to two former Apple executives.

On the retirement of Senior Vice President Bob Mansfield:

According to three people familiar with the sequence of events, several senior engineers on Mansfield’s team vociferously complained to Cook about reporting to his replacement, Dan Riccio, who they felt was unprepared for the magnitude of the role. In response, Cook approached Mansfield and offered him an exorbitant package of cash and stock worth around $2 million a month to stay on at Apple as an adviser and help manage the hardware engineering team.